Unfortunately I really wanted to like working here. However, the culture really made it difficult.
- Very, VERY non-trusting of employees and even managers/directors. This culture manifested as the hilariously complicated and restrictive "flexible" work policy, where not even directors were trusted to hold their employees accountable to get work done on a hybrid schedule.
- It also manifested and as a very inefficient way to get work done and allocate tasks. Mid-level employees - not to mention junior engineers - were not trusted to take ownership of tasks. As a result, I feel like my skillset and my general working confidence stagnated or even atrophied during the time I was at Allison. At one point I, a senior engineer, had very little work to do while my supervisor took lead on a change request (as a software developer, not just a tech lead). I learned later that this was at the behest of his boss (my manager) because it was "too important" for regular engineers like me to own, even though I had >10 years of experience at the time.
- To that end, it felt like a "boys' club" at times. If you came in as a new employee, even with years (or a decade+) of experience, it didn't matter. Oftentimes junior and senior engineers would have very little work to do while tech experts, who were supposed to consult and mentor, would have a high workload owning day-to-day software tasks.
- Extremely regressive culture when it comes to tech and innovation. It's okay to be cautious, but driving any change that's not "the way it's always been done" was a monumental task every time. It was very tiresome and made what should be interesting and innovative projects needlessly difficult. Part of this comes with the territory with commercial automotive, but I still feel like Allison's trepidation and resistance to develop will hurt them in the long run.
